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English Conversational Phrases You NEED to Talk About Cooking (Video Podcast with Subtitles)
English Conversational Phrases You NEED to Talk About Cooking (Video Podcast with Subtitles)
To Fluency
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23:29 · Nov 25, 2025
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To
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0:00
Hello, this is Jack from To Fluency,
0:02
and welcome to this English lesson where we're going to talk about cooking,
0:07
cooking today, breakfast, quick meals, snacks, grocery lists, and things like go-to meals.
0:16
Now.
0:16
This is great listening practice.
0:18
But as always, you are also going to get new vocabulary
0:22
and phrases that you can use in all areas of English
0:26
because we like to make these lessons conversational,
0:30
meaning the types of words and phrases you use when you have conversations.
0:35
And before we get into breakfast,
0:37
know that all of the words
0:38
and phrases are going to be in the description for you.
0:42
And while you are in the description,
0:43
check out the resources we have
0:45
so that you can improve English on your own.
0:48
Let's start with what people call the most important meal of the day,
0:53
and that is breakfast.
0:55
Breakfast.
0:56
Personally, I tend to have breakfast around nine or 10,
1:01
the number one thing I have at the moment is eggs on toast.
1:06
Simple, nutritious, tasty, and sometimes I'll throw in some bacon as well.
1:12
But before all that, I usually start the day with a cup of coffee,
1:17
not tea.
1:18
I am from England, but I prefer coffee in the morning,
1:21
and then I'll have a couple of cups of tea after the coffee before
1:25
having breakfast.
1:26
Now, when I was a kid,
1:28
I used to wake up
1:29
and the first thing I did was to pour myself a bowl of cereal.
1:34
Or you can also say to get yourself, get yourself a bowl of cereal.
1:38
And as you probably know, when we talk about habits in the past,
1:43
we can use used to.
1:45
Used to.
1:46
So I used to eat a lot of cereal as a kid.
1:49
Another example is I used to live in Spain.
1:53
Speaking of Spain, when I used to ask my students in Spain,
1:57
especially the younger children, what they ate for breakfast, they always said hot chocolate.
2:03
So this is what they had for breakfast, it seemed like in Spain,
2:07
and if you are from Spain,
2:08
can you let me know
2:10
that most people just have something very light for breakfast.
2:13
So when they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day,
2:17
usually people think, oh, I need to have lots of food for breakfast.
2:21
But in other countries, they just like something small,
2:24
like a coffee and a small pastry.
2:27
People in England tend to have things like beans and toast,
2:31
cereal just toast sometimes if they're rushing,
2:34
but on the weekend it's quite common to have a full English breakfast,
2:40
and sometimes I make a mini English breakfast.
2:43
But this includes eggs, bacon, toast, tomatoes, tomatoes.
2:49
If you are using the American accent beans, if I haven't said that already,
2:54
and also black pudding.
2:56
Now I'll leave exactly what black pudding is in the description for you to
3:01
understand what that is
3:03
and in the US.
3:04
I always say people like to have dessert for breakfast
3:08
because people love to have things like pancakes with maple syrup,
3:13
muffins, and other types of very sugary pastries.
3:18
But another item that's very popular and I've grown to love this.
3:22
I've grown to love this, which means over time.
3:25
I have gone from not liking it that much to actually liking this now.
3:30
And it's a bagel.
3:31
A bagel, especially a bagel with either cream cheese
3:36
or a bagel with butter
3:38
and jam.
3:39
Something simple.
3:40
And I dunno if this is popular in your country,
3:43
but I think it originated in the us.
3:45
And it's this brunch.
3:48
Brunch.
3:49
This is very popular on a Sunday morning, and it's not breakfast,
3:53
it's not lunch.
3:54
It's a combination of the two.
3:56
And I quite enjoy going out for brunch.
3:58
Usually it's quite good,
4:00
especially if I can watch some soccer at the same time.
4:03
The downside of making a big breakfast,
4:06
like a full English breakfast is washing up after.
4:09
I'm gonna talk about washing up later.
4:11
But first, let's talk about snacks.
4:13
So snacks are the little things that you eat between meals.
4:17
Now in the US and in the uk,
4:19
it's very common to have three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
4:23
And the snacks are what you have in between those meals.
4:27
Although it does seem like a lot of people are always snacking.
4:31
And it's much more common,
4:33
I think in the US to have snacks wherever you are.
4:37
So if you're walking down the street, you can eat a snack.
4:39
If you're on the bus, you eat a snack.
4:41
If you're on the train, you eat a snack.
4:43
If you're at home, then you open up the pantry and grab a snack.
4:47
Snacking is big in the US.
4:49
And I'm not big on snacks,
4:51
which means I don't tend to eat them that often.
4:54
But you might hear people say things like,
4:57
I just need a little something before lunch,
4:59
or I need a little snack to to get me through until dinner,
5:04
which means to help me not to feel so hungry until dinner.
5:08
Now, the one thing
5:09
that I will eat
5:10
if they're in the house are chips
5:13
or in British English crisps.
5:15
I love crisps.
5:17
I love them.
5:18
I always have done,
5:19
when I used to go swimming
5:21
as a child for swimming lessons
5:23
and be on the swim team,
5:25
I would often go to the vending machines
5:26
and buy maybe 10 bags of crisps.
5:30
I was very hungry after swimming,
5:31
but I used to eat crisps all the time.
5:34
And if we have them in the house now,
5:36
I tend to eat them quite a lot, so that is my weakness.
5:41
Crisps, or in the US you call them chips.
5:44
But I can also just go all day without eating
5:48
and then feel fine for dinner.
5:50
In fact, I don't mind being hungry.
5:53
I'm hungry right now, but I'm not thinking, oh,
5:55
I need to get a snack.
5:56
I need to eat something.
5:58
I've got used to to get used to something.
6:01
I have got used to being hungry or being somewhat hungry,
6:06
and also being patient to wait for dinner time.
6:09
So a good phrase is, I don't mind being hungry,
6:12
which means it doesn't bother me.
6:14
It doesn't upset me that I'm hungry.
6:16
I don't mind being hungry.
6:18
Children in the US from my experience, love snacks.
6:22
They always want to have snacks with them in the car
6:25
when they're at the park,
6:27
just before dinner.
6:28
And common snacks here are things like pretzels.
6:31
So bags of pretzels.
6:32
Bags of chips.
6:34
Beef jerky is also quite common here, too.
6:37
Nuts and those different types of protein bars or energy bars.
6:42
I haven't found many energy bars that I like.
6:45
I used to like some of them, but not really anymore.
6:48
So you might hear someone say, let's grab a few snacks before we go.
6:53
Let's grab a few snacks before we go.
6:56
And grab is a very common verb in American English especially,
7:01
and it just means to get, so let's get some snacks before we go.
7:05
And then here's more of a British term:
7:07
when you are craving a snack or you want a snack and it's this,
7:13
I fancy something to eat or I fancy something sweet.
7:18
To fancy something, to fancy someone means
7:21
that you are attracted to
7:22
that person romantically.
7:25
So that's a little bit of a difference here, but you might just say,
7:28
for example, I fancy a quick drink before dinner.
7:32
I fancy a quick drink before dinner.
7:34
Now when people talk about snacks they like that aren't the healthiest,
7:38
they often say It's my guilty pleasure, for example, crisps are my guilty pleasure.
7:45
Although they're not the unhealthier snacks, so it doesn't quite fit perfectly.
7:49
But I also love chocolate.
7:51
I love lots of chocolate, so I'll say chocolate is my guilty pleasure.
7:55
It's the one thing that I feel guilty about eating in a way,
7:59
but I find it very pleasurable.
8:01
And when you're trying to reduce the number of snacks you're having, you'll say,
8:07
I'm trying to cut back on chocolate.
8:09
I'm trying to cut back on chips, which means you're trying to reduce,
8:14
to cut back on something.
8:16
I've just realized I haven't asked you a question yet.
8:18
I wanna go back to breakfast real quick and just ask,
8:21
what is your typical breakfast and is that common in your country?
8:26
Let's now move on to cooking now
8:28
and meals because this is a really good area of English to explore.
8:33
Now, let's say you get home
8:35
and you haven't planned what you're going to have for dinner.
8:39
You haven't planned what you are going to cook.
8:41
And you just wanna make something fast because everyone is hungry.
8:44
Here's a great phrase to know about that.
8:47
I'm just gonna throw something together.
8:49
I'm just going to throw something together.
8:52
So this means to prepare dinner without really thinking about the recipe
8:58
and getting all the ingredients correct,
9:01
so you're going to work with what you have and put dinner together.
9:05
I'm gonna just throw something together.
9:07
Or you might hear someone say, let's just have pizza.
9:11
Let's just have pizza.
9:13
Or let's finish that leftover pasta that we cooked last night.
9:17
Now, leftovers, I love leftovers.
9:21
So to have leftovers means
9:23
that extra food you have after cooking the day before.
9:28
So after cooking, you've cooked too much
9:30
or you cooked too much on purpose
9:33
because you want leftovers,
9:34
you put them in some type of container,
9:37
put them in the fridge and you can have them the next day.
9:40
And like I say, I love leftovers.
9:42
When I see leftovers in the fridge, I always want them.
9:46
Also in the US it is common
9:49
and expected to ask for a box at a restaurant.
9:54
So let's say you have a big bowl of pasta
9:56
and you can't finish the pasta.
9:58
You ask the server, can I get a box for this?
10:01
Can I get a box for this?
10:03
In the past, they would take your plate
10:06
and put it into a takeout box.
10:09
But now they bring the box to you and you put the dinner,
10:13
the leftovers into the box for you to take home.
10:17
So if you visit the US in most restaurants, unless it's fancy,
10:21
you can ask for a box to take the food back with you to
10:25
have for leftovers the next day.
10:27
These are my favorite type of leftovers when you've had a really good meal.
10:31
And you have some leftover and the next day, sometimes for breakfast,
10:37
I'll have the leftovers.
10:38
The other thing to do here is becoming more popular again,
10:43
or very popular in the US,
10:45
is to use an app to get food delivered.
10:48
When I was growing up in the uk, you could get takeout quite easy.
10:54
Now, in the British English, we call it takeaway to get takeaway,
10:59
but in American English it is takeout.
11:01
But this was very easy to do in England,
11:04
mainly with Indian restaurants and pizza restaurants where you call the restaurant,
11:09
you place an order over the phone, they deliver it to you,
11:14
and then you pay them when they arrive.
11:16
Nowadays, you can use apps on your phone.
11:19
And the delivery fee isn't too much.
11:22
Now, sometimes people will order a coffee to be delivered.
11:27
I've seen people do this,
11:28
so they'll just want a cup of coffee delivered from a very famous coffee
11:32
store,
11:33
and they'll get it delivered to their house,
11:36
which is very American in my eyes.
11:39
I don't do takeout that often.
11:42
But it's always fun when you do it.
11:44
Now let's move on to something more elaborate.
11:47
When you are cooking bigger meals and these are more intentional.
11:51
And we're also going to talk about our favorite meals to cook.
11:55
A great phrase here is a go-to meal.
11:57
A go-to meal.
11:59
Someone might ask you, what is your go-to meal?
12:02
What is the number one thing that you like to cook?
12:05
My go-to meal is either beef stew cooked,
12:09
in a pressure cooker with meat, potatoes, broth, carrots, very rich.
12:16
Or beef pasta.
12:18
Beef pasta, where I make beef in pasta.
12:22
Sometimes it's sausage pasta, but I really like beef in pasta.
12:26
It's a little bit like a spaghetti bolognese.
12:28
But pasta instead of spaghetti.
12:31
And most of the time when I'm cooking meals,
12:33
I like to cook with whole foods and from scratch, more or less.
12:39
Sometimes I like for example,
12:41
an Indian sauce in a jar
12:44
that is all prepared
12:45
and you put the sauce over the meat.
12:47
And then you cook it like that,
12:49
and it's quite quick and it tastes quite authentic, relatively.
12:54
But a lot of the time when I'm making simple meals,
12:57
I'll cook from scratch.
12:59
I don't really like those ready meals in packets,
13:02
either frozen or in different kinds of containers.
13:07
Instead, I like to cook in a pan with sauces, with natural whole ingredients.
13:14
But instant meals are very popular in the us.
13:17
The frozen section here is really big,
13:20
and you can get lots of different instant meals
13:23
that you can cook from frozen.
13:25
Some of these are pretty good,
13:27
like family lasagna to get a frozen lasagna and put it in the oven.
13:32
If you're watching from Italy, you might disagree with me,
13:36
but I quite like these.
13:38
They taste quite good.
13:39
And they're popular because they're convenient and fast.
13:42
They're convenient, meaning that it doesn't take a lot of time
13:45
and energy in order to cook this. frozen pizza is also very popular here
13:51
too,
13:52
where you just take a frozen pizza, put it in the oven,
13:55
and then it's ready.
13:56
Again, if you're watching from Italy, you might disagree with me,
14:00
but sometimes these taste quite good.
14:02
Now there's often a debate around rotating meals versus always trying to cook something
14:09
new.
14:09
Now I'm somewhere in the middle.
14:12
I have my go-to meals.
14:14
I like to cook the same meals again and again.
14:17
At the same time, around every three weeks, every month,
14:22
let's say I like to try something new,
14:25
something a little bit different so that you can keep it fresh.
14:29
So to rotate meals means
14:30
that you have maybe 10 to 15 meals
14:34
that you like to cook
14:35
and you rotate them.
14:37
Sometimes I like to have the same meal on the same day.
14:40
For example, steak Wednesday, pizza Friday. sometimes we do something different,
14:46
but most of the time it's along those lines.
14:49
Now I think I'm a pretty good cook, pretty good.
14:52
I don't think I'm the best, but I do make some good meals.
14:57
It's when it comes to more of the fancy style meals with lots of
15:02
herbs and spices and different sources.
15:05
I don't like to experiment there, but generally speaking,
15:09
I think I'm a pretty good cook.
15:12
When it comes to cooking, you need ingredients first.
15:16
And now this next section, we're gonna talk about grocery shopping.
15:20
Now I did a video on shopping in general,
15:22
which I'll link to in the comment section
15:25
if you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts
15:28
or on Spotify.
15:29
I'll leave a link to that podcast episode too.
15:31
But a very common phrase here is
15:33
when you're thinking about shopping lists
15:36
and thinking about what you need to get is,
15:38
do we have any?
15:40
Do we have any garlic?
15:41
Do we have any pasta left?
15:43
Do we have any herbs for this dish I'm gonna make?
15:47
Do we have any?
15:48
Because you might not know,
15:49
you might be on the phone calling someone who was at home
15:53
and you are asking them to see
15:54
if you have any of
15:56
that left in case you need to get it.
15:58
And one thing I really dislike is when you are getting ready to cook.
16:02
And you are missing that one ingredient,
16:05
that one ingredient that is gonna make or break this meal.
16:09
And oftentimes what you can do is text your neighbors to say,
16:12
do you have any garlic?
16:14
I just really need some garlic for this dish.
16:17
Or if you're close to the store, you can say,
16:19
I'm just going to nip to the shop.
16:22
I'm just gonna nip to the shop,
16:24
which means I'm gonna go to the shop quickly.
16:26
I'm gonna go there, get the ingredient, and then come back.
16:29
When it comes to cooking a new meal and finding a recipe,
16:33
I don't really like recipe websites
16:35
because they have lots of popups
16:37
and ads on the website,
16:39
and it takes a
16:40
while for you to get to the right place
16:42
that you want to be in order to get the recipe.
16:45
Instead, I tend to use AI now for recipes,
16:50
and the reason I do is
16:51
because it gives you the ability to get specific.
16:55
So you might say, I have some chicken thighs with the bone in.
17:00
I have these spices and I have rice.
17:04
Can you gimme a simple recipe with these ingredients?
17:08
So instead of trying to find everything through search or YouTube,
17:13
you can ask for this specifically based on what you have.
17:17
And you can also ask for things like,
17:19
can you make it as simple as possible?
17:21
And then it gives you the recipe and you say,
17:23
I prefer not to cook in a pan.
17:26
Can I cook this in the oven instead?
17:28
And they say, yep, sure.
17:29
Here you go.
17:30
Here is how to do that.
17:32
And then if you are preparing in advance,
17:35
then you can make a list and go to the grocery store.
17:39
So you might say to somebody, let's stock up before the weekend.
17:43
Let's stock up before the weekend.
17:45
Now to stock up means to get everything
17:47
that you need food wise before the weekend.
17:50
So let's stock up before the weekend.
17:53
And to be honest, I'm not a big fan of grocery shopping.
17:56
I don't mind going but I don't enjoy being in certain stores,
18:01
especially when it's hard to get parking.
18:04
It's really busy inside
18:06
and in the US there doesn't tend to be long lines at the checkout.
18:11
And a lot of the time you can also do self checkout now,
18:14
but it can get really busy.
18:17
And I much prefer to use an app to have the groceries delivered.
18:22
I used to do this a lot more than I do now.
18:25
It's a preference, but it's more expensive.
18:28
Although I do tend to save about an hour or two hours,
18:32
depending on which store I go to doing that.
18:35
But the thing I hate the most is
18:36
when I come back home
18:38
and I empty all the bags
18:39
and then I say,
18:40
oh no, I forgot the chocolate.
18:43
Or, oh no, I forgot the garlic I needed for this.
18:46
But let's say this time I have everything I need to cook.
18:50
Here's something that I think maybe you agree with.
18:53
I'm not sure.
18:54
When I'm cooking, I like to clean as I cook,
18:58
and I really enjoy cooking if there are certain things that are happening.
19:04
For example, I like it
19:05
when I have a little bit of wine
19:07
or a little bit of beer
19:09
when I cook,
19:10
I have some music on or a podcast, and I'm free.
19:15
I'm able to be in the kitchen usually on my own
19:18
and be able to cook.
19:20
I also like cooking with other people as well,
19:23
but I do like to be on my own when I'm cooking.
19:27
There's a certain vibe and like I said,
19:30
I like to clean as I cook too.
19:32
I don't understand when people don't clean
19:35
and throw out the trash
19:37
as they're cooking.
19:38
Another thing is in the kitchen.
19:39
I don't like overhead lights,
19:42
so I like to have good lights on when I'm cooking.
19:45
I don't like overhead, strong fluorescent lights,
19:49
although I need enough light so I can see what I'm doing.
19:52
Now, when it's ready in the US it's common to sit around the table.
19:57
The same in the uk,
19:59
but I think maybe in the US
20:01
and UK it's more casual than other countries
20:04
because often you can have it outside on the porch,
20:08
on your lap.
20:09
You can have it in front of the TV sometimes, depending on the meal,
20:13
you can have it on the sofa
20:15
if you're feeling relaxed
20:17
and you don't wanna sit around a table.
20:19
But I do enjoy sitting around a table for dinner.
20:22
Now, is that common where you live?
20:23
Is it always around the table?
20:25
What time do you have dinner?
20:27
And does this depend on what you are eating and who you are with?
20:30
Now the next section is all about washing up what you have to do
20:35
after you've had the meal.
20:36
Because you've cooked and you've eaten, and it's the last job to do.
20:40
Now there's a great phrase here to take turns,
20:43
and it's often used in board games and card games to take turns,
20:47
like whose turn is it?
20:49
But you can take turns
20:50
when it comes to things like washing up within a family unit
20:54
or if you are with some housemates.
20:56
So you might say, it's my turn to wash up tonight.
20:59
Whose turn is it to wash up tonight?
21:02
Oh, it's your turn to wash up tonight.
21:04
And a common complaint is the sink is full again.
21:07
The dishwasher hasn't been unloaded.
21:10
This pan needs soaking so you can soak a pan before you wash it.
21:16
But using a phrase that we used before, I don't mind washing up.
21:19
In fact, I quite enjoy it after the meal,
21:22
to take my time with the washing up
21:24
and just to get in the zone to load the dishwasher,
21:28
unload the dishwasher.
21:29
It depends on if I have to rush to do something,
21:32
but if I have time, then I don't mind washing up at all.
21:36
Let's finish on talking about food that you like and also food you dislike.
21:40
We talked about this before a little bit.
21:42
Things like a fancy steak tonight, or I'm craving steak tonight.
21:47
I fancy going out to eat,
21:49
or why don't we go out to eat tonight?
21:52
And a phrase I'm sure you've heard other people say before is,
21:55
it's not my cup of tea.
21:57
It's not my cup of tea.
21:58
So you might say, if someone's talking about pasta or full English breakfast,
22:03
you say, it's not my cup of tea.
22:05
It's not as common as people think.
22:07
It's more common just to say like,
22:09
I'm not a big fan of full English breakfast
22:12
or I am not keen on full English breakfast
22:16
and these two phrases,
22:17
you're trying to soften what you are saying.
22:19
Instead of saying, I hate full English breakfast.
22:22
A lot of the time people will soften it and say,
22:25
I'm not a big fan of full English breakfast.
22:28
And then here's a question for you.
22:30
If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life,
22:33
what would you choose?
22:35
Now, this is using a conditional sentence, if you could,
22:39
if you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life,
22:42
which one would you choose?
22:44
For me, I think I'm going to go with pizza,
22:49
which surprises me that I said that.
22:51
But thinking about it for the long term.
22:53
Yeah, I think maybe pizza.
22:55
What to do now is to go to the description
22:57
and get all of the phrases from this lesson.
23:00
Put them in your notebook, write them down, copy them,
23:03
or use something like Anki to put them into spaced repetition software
23:08
so you can learn them over the long term.
23:11
Be sure to share this lesson as well.
23:12
I love it when people share the lesson with their friends.
23:16
Click the like button if there is a like button.
23:18
And also in the description,
23:20
take a look at the different resources
23:22
that I have for you for learning English.
23:25
So thank you for being here, and I'll speak to you soon.
23:27
Bye for now.
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